For the first time in 70 years, this international science award goes to China

On October 24, 2023, Beijing time, the American Physical Society announced that Xue Qikun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a professor at Tsinghua University, and the president of the Southern University of Science and Technology , won the 2024 Buckley Prize. This is the first time that the prize has been awarded to a Chinese physicist since it was first awarded in 1953.

The Buckley Prize is recognized as the highest award in the field of international condensed matter physics, and is intended to honor scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the field of condensed matter physics.

Xue Qikun and Ashvin Vishwanath, a professor at Harvard University, jointly won the award for their "groundbreaking theoretical and experimental studies on the collective electronic properties of materials that reflect topological aspects of their band structure."

Thanks to his innovative breakthroughs in topological insulator research and the discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in topological insulators, Xue Qikun became the first Chinese winner of the Buckley Prize in 70 years.

The quantum anomalous Hall effect is an important quantum effect in condensed matter physics. For a long time, it has been extremely difficult to make it "appear" and realize experimental observation, and it has been a scientific goal that countless researchers have been striving to pursue but have not achieved.

Since 2009, Xue Qikun has formed a research team with several research groups from the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Stanford University in the United States, and together they have tried to climb this scientific peak from the research direction of topological insulators.

At the end of 2012, after overcoming one difficulty after another, Xue Qikun and his team finally succeeded in experimentally observing the quantum anomalous Hall effect, which was a "world first"! The result was published in the American magazine Science in March 2013, and the reviewers highly praised it, calling it "a milestone work in the field of condensed matter physics."

Final measurement samples and data for the experimental discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect

This important physical phenomenon independently observed by Chinese scientists in experiments is regarded as an important scientific discovery in the field of global basic research. It is one of the most important experimental advances in the world physics community and has led to a new direction for subsequent international condensed matter physics research.

In the application field, the quantum anomalous Hall effect and its dissipationless edge state may be used in the future to develop a new generation of low-energy electronic devices and solve a series of bottleneck problems.

Xue Qikun and some members of the research team

Xue Qikun communicates with students from the research team

The achievement of these results is due to the continuous growth of the country's scientific and technological strength and the long-term and profound accumulation of basic scientific research since the reform and opening up. This honor belongs to every researcher in the team and to the country. "Xue Qikun firmly believes that China will have more and more scientific discoveries and achievements that lead international development.

Someone asked: "If you could go back to the moment when your results were published in 2013, what would you like to say to yourself at that time?"

Xue Qikun replied: "I would say... self-improvement!"

Planning and production

Source: Tsinghua University, People's Daily Client

Editor: Wang Mengru